The original Absinthe Frappé emerged in the later nineteenth century and was one of the first drinks to put absinthe in a starring role. Taking the traditional concept of chilling and diluting absinthe to bring out its flavors and make it palatable, this elegant cocktail is shaken with ice and served over crushed ice. Though anisette is the traditional liqueur in the spec, I found the combination of crème de menthe and fresh mint to be ideal here.

I wanted to do a fizz for this month (I do so love a fizz!), but all the combos I tried fell flat! Instead, I decided to eliminate the soda element and incorporate a whole egg instead of just egg white, making it a classic nineteenth-century flip. The resulting cocktail, with smoky, spiced, and tropical flavors is an excellent dessert drink befitting any cold-weather gathering.

The Whiskey Sour with a red wine float (aka a “claret snap”) has gone by various names including the Continental Sour and Southern Sour and, though it likely originated in Chicago, people in 1880s Boston called it the “New-York Sour,” and the name has stuck. It can be served over a large ice cube or up in a chilled coupe; at Gigantic, we favor the former.

I got the idea for this odd-but-delightful deconstructed drink from “Cocktail Bill” Boothby’s 1890s book, American Bar-Tender. Though this source comes over forty years after the gold rush began, it’s a testament to how San Francisco remained a locus of cocktail culture and has remained so, though not necessarily continually, to this day. I based this on Boothby’s Dude Cocktail, which is a simple sweet soda or lemon soda laced with lime juice and crème de vanille.

By the 1860s, it was common practice to add liqueurs–Curaçao and maraschino in the early days–to the Cocktail’s original formula. The term “Fancy Cocktail” typically denotes this addition and the assurance of a lemon twist, too. “Improved Cocktails” typically layer yet more flavor, with absinthe, multiple liqueurs, or a combination of bitters. The recipe below is technically an Improved Cocktail, though omitting the absinthe will knock it down to the “Fancy” level.

The very first cocktail recipe in William Schmidt’s sprawling entertaining and drinks manual is the Jack Frost Whiskey Sour. It calls for “apple whiskey,” cream, a whole egg, sugar, lemon, and soda. In actuality, it’s a Fizz and our version plays that up and splits the spirit and sweetener elements across a few different spirits and liqueurs. Juniper, apple, fig, and honey come through in this creamy, Flip-adjacent Fizz.

The Widow’s Kiss was first published in 1895’s Modern American Drinks by George Kappeler. The original recipe calls for apple brandy with equal measures of Bénédictine and yellow Chartreuse, plus Angostura bitters. Our take is dry and spirit-forward and switches out the Chartreuse in favor of Alpine amaro, which nods to the Alpine origins of Chartreuse and also does the work of the bitters. It’s got a Rusty Nail vibe that I really love.

The Sazerac is an institution and I love the rye-based versions dearly. But I also like split-base recipes that recognize the Cognac roots of the cocktail (and Cognac-only versions too!). This version of the Sazerac plays up the cocktail’s “Improved” qualities, splitting the aromatic ingredients between four different products, as well as splitting the base.

Ever since I wrote a piece for PUNCH about the Roffignac, I’ve wanted to develop my own spec. Though we’re taking a bit of a shortcut with this method and not making our own shrub, the à la minute “shrub” works and I love the way the plum and Cognac go together. A great drink for September that straddles summer and fall.

As we saw with our Proto-Daiquiri recipe, the trifecta of rum, lime, and sugar is a classic Caribbean combinatioN that long predates the Daiquiri. This version reflects new styles of rum that emerged in the late nineteenth century. To this classic-as-they-come spec, I’ve made a couple of subtle tweaks: the oils from a piece of lime peel add texture, while a pinch of salt provides a counterpoint to the sweet-tart profile of the drink.

The Fizz as a category was popular in the last few decades of the nineteenth century and the first two of the twentieth. This drink is based specifically on the Ramos Gin Fizz, which emerged in the 1880s at the Imperial Cabinet Saloon in New Orleans. Traditionally, it consists of gin, lemon and lime, sugar, orange flower water, cream, egg white, and soda. I saw an opportunity to play with the citrus, and use Aperol and banana liqueur that combine for a fruity profile, almost like creamy strawberry-banana.

The Martinez and other early “Martinis,” were a lot like the first Manhattan recipes. Many such recipes called for a 2:1 ratio of vermouth to gin–which you are welcome to try! I went with 1:1 here. The gin, of course, would have been in the sweetened Old Tom style or Holland gin, aka genever. Lemon is traditional, but I went with an orange twist, wrapped around a cherry for visual interest.

In developing a drink appropriate for ringing in the new year, I looked to the legacy of “Cups,” a genre of drink popular in the nineteenth century. Typically a mix of wine and/or spirits, fruit, sweetener in the form of sugar and/or liqueur, and carbonation, these cocktails are often presented with opulent garnish. Ours is inspired specifically by Claret Cups, which were a popular expression of this template built on French red wine (traditionally from Bordeaux).

I’m doing a yearlong series for Keap, a maker of fine candles based in Kingston, NY. It’s been a really fun project to work on, especially because they let me design the drinks around the Labors of the Month, a cycle common in medieval art that I’ve long been obsessed with. Here’s the recipe for January 2022, a stirred Cognac and amaro cocktail topped with Champagne.

Apple brandy Manhattans are one of the most delicious (and fall-appropriate) branches of the family tree. We have a great triumvirate here: the dry Star (Harry Johnson, 1900), the sweet Star (George Kappeler, 1895), and the Marconi Wireless (Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book, 1935).

The earliest versions of the Manhattan resemble quite closely the original Cocktail (spirits, sugar, water, bitters) and feature a split base of rye and Italian (sweet) vermouth. This is an excellent example, taken from the second edition of Harry Johnson’s Bartenders’ Manual.

This is the second in my Improved Cocktail series in the spring of 2021. With deep, dark flavors, this Improved Brandy Cocktail - Iberian edition - emphasizes the importance of products from Portugal and Spain in the history of the American Cocktail and, before that, in Punch and early modern drinking history, generally.

I’ve centered this Improved Whiskey Cocktail, the third in my Improved Cocktail series from spring 2021, on rye. Rye was the mixing (American) whiskey of choice through the nineteenth century, with only some exceptions that call for Bourbon, which was still a very regional product. Unaged apple brandy brightens things up, while Madeira and apricot liqueur team up to lend a buttery stone fruit profile. An uncommon sweetener in the form of brown sugar syrup grounds the whole thing and points to the colonial-era inspiration behind the drink, bolstered by walnut bitters and nutmeg.

This cocktail was part of my Improved Cocktails series in the spring of 2021. I’d tackled the Holland gin version before, but this version employed my use of two spirits as the base (genever and arrack), along with fortified wine (oloroso sherry), liqueur (crème de banane, sweetener (zesty lime-ginger syrup), and chocolate bitters.

This drink was created at the Waldorf in honor of an 1894 operetta about a Scottish folk hero. A few years ago, I ordered a Rob Roy from my friend Alex Caffall at Fort Defiance; she said she always made hers “perfect,” i.e. splitting the vermouth between sweet and dry. I’ve preferred them that way ever since.